Time’s up for the Yes2Rail blog, which I launched on June 30, 2008 as a paid consultant on Honolulu's elevated rail project. Yes2Rail’s August 13, 2012 post was its last following the author's move to Sacramento, CA. You’re invited to read four-plus years of information-packed entries, many of which are linked at our “aggregation site.” Look for the paragraph with red copy in the right-hand column, below. Mahalo for all the positive comments Yes2Rail received since its start.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Like Chicken Man, who was a regular feature on J. Akuhead Pupule's radio show decades ago, University
of Hawaii political science professor Neal Milner “is everywhere!” on election
night television coverage and is frequently in the newspaper the next day, too.

It’s therefore satisfying
that Dr. Milner agrees with our thesis that the latest public opinion survey on
rail has a major flaw: It did not reveal what Oahu residents who are unlikely
to vote in the August 11 primary election think about Honolulu rail.

That’s important, because
the population segment that doesn’t vote – approximately half of the eligible
adults – is less educated, less wealthy and therefore more likely to rely on
public transportation.

But the Star-Advertiser/Hawaii
News Now poll didn’t even ask for
their opinions on rail, as Monday’s story on the poll revealed: “The rail
question was asked of 509 very likely Oahu voters in the upcoming primary.”

That approach is useful in
analyzing the horse race among the three mayoral candidates, but as for judging
the entire population’s attitudes on rail, it’s a complete failure. And
Professor Milner agrees!

We sought out his reaction to
Yes2Rail’s Monday post about the voter-only polling, and he responded by email
yesterday:

“Hi Doug, Yes, there are
crucial differences between people likely to vote and non-voters. That is
a staple of voting studies. So the media cannot say that the ‘public’
feels this way about rail. You of course don't have any recent data that
involves a broader sample and the earlier referendum has the same drawbacks on
determining what the public wants as the surveys you criticize. But your
criticism is correct, a point for you. But I think that is not the battle
that is being fought here. The battle is over who is going to be elected
mayor, and the poll that includes only likely voters is really the only thing
that matters right now.”

Up to a Point

We agree with Professor
Milner that predicting the mayoral race winner is the sexiest issue with the greatest potential to alter Honolulu's transportation future,
but a poll that completely ignores what probable transit riders think about
rail has a big problem, and Dr. Milner agrees.

Government can't favor
voters over non-voters in planning and building infrastructure that will last
for generations. Any politician who blatantly does that is liable to face
indictment for violating the public trust. Just look at a new lawsuit filed by a local bus rider against the City Council alleging decades-long discrimination against minorities and the working poor.

Yet the media’s obsession
with the candidate vs. candidate horse race has led the poll’s sponsors to miss
that point entirely. The same was true over at Civil Beat several months ago when it, too, surveyed only the likely voters – because of the horse-race orientation.

I have no connection with
the two pro-rail candidates and have not contributed to a mayoral candidate’s
campaign for years in order to avoid any personal pay-for-play criticism, but I
have to believe the pro-rail candidates are working hard to get out the vote among
those who’ve fallen out of the voting habit. It’s just a guess, but if they do turn out, there could be some embarrassment among local poll takers.

The Uninformed Columnist

The Star-Advertiser’s Richard Borreca, who is blatantly anti-rail and has
validated our January prediction that the paper's three columnists will write not a single paragraph of
positive content about the project in 2012, revealed his low rail IQ in
yesterday’s column(subscription required). Dave "Volcanic Ash" Shapiro continues the columnists' anti-rail unanimity with his "coffin of Oahu rail transit" column today.

In analyzing the latest
poll, Mr. Borreca concludes: “Honolulu voters do more than just dislike the idea.
They think it is the wrong idea and want buses instead.” And then comes a repeat of anti-railer-in-chief Cliff
Slater’s primary talking point that has fooled Mr. Borreca about rail’s true
purpose:

“First, voters are saying
it won’t reduce traffic. About 44 percent say yes, it will cut it, but 54
percent say no, it will not help traffic congestion.”

That is pure Cliff Slater
propaganda – suggesting that rail would be a failure if it doesn’t “reduce
traffic.” Mr. Borreca has bought that line, and because he and virtually the
entire media corps have uncritically repeated that talking point ad nauseum, a majority of the 509 “very likely Oahu voters” who
were polled seems to have bought it, too.

As Yes2Rail also has
repeated time and again (here's one of many posts on the issue), rail’s purpose is not to reduce traffic – an
impossible goal of any plan or project as long as the population continues to
grow. Rail will be an alternative travel mode to give users a traffic-free
travel experience.

It’s doubtful Mr. Borreca is
even aware of Cliff Slater’s statement before the City Council in July 2010: “We
don’t disagree at all that rail will have an effect on reducing traffic
congestion from what it might be if we did nothing at all....”.

Near the end of his piece,
Mr. Borreca misstates rail’s purpose again as he wraps up yet another anti-rail
column: “Those three poll questions (on traffic, job creation and spending) make up the backbone of the
city’s argument for rail: It is going to create jobs, it is coming in on budget
and it will reduce traffic. The poll shows a majority of voters don’t believe
any of that.”

If that’s what they believe,
it’s not a surprise – precisely because Messrs. Borreca and Slater and their
like-minded anti-rail friends have consistently confused the issues. Rail will
reduce the rate of congestion’s growth, but it won’t do what Mr. Borreca
apparently believes it should – reduce congestion below current levels. Nothing will, including adding more buses to the congestion and/or paving over more of space-short Oahu with more highway lanes.

The true backbone of the
Honolulu rail project are its goals, and we doubt Mr. Borreca could recite them
if pressed.

Stoned

The column’s concluding
observation left us thinking of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. “…the real
reason rail is not winning strong support is because it is not what voters in
Honolulu want. The more the city refused to change the plan, the more public
frustration will grow and the more it will result in the election of a city
leader who will relieve the tension by moving in a new direction.”

In other words, toss out all
the years of planning to give Honolulu residents a traffic-avoiding time-saving
travel option by transportation experts who do this for a living. Toss out all
of that and give citizens what they “want,” which is what the anti-rail faction
has told them they want – the impossible dream of less traffic congestion
20, 40 and 60 years from now than we have today.

To which the Stones might
reply:

You can’t always get what
you want

But if you try sometimes
you just might find

You get what you need.

Thanks to the constant
repetition of anti-rail propaganda by opinion leaders like Mr. Borreca, It
looks as if a narrow majority of “very likely Oahu voters” who were polled don’t know or even care about what the
community needs.

END NOTE: Please click on the Comment link, below, and read the top comment, then go to the comments below the July 30 post. They highlight a blatant falsehood in Monday's Star-Advertiser rail story.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

It's quite revealing that the Star-Advertiser never did bother to run a correction to the clearly and indisputably FALSE statement in the first sentence of the lead story on Monday's front page, that "only 44 percent of Oahu residents" believe work on the rail project should continue.

100 percent of readers should therefore conclude that the people who run the paper don't even read it, aren't smart enough to spot such an obvious error, can't admit they're wrong, or just don't care about publishing blatantly false statements in the days before a highly contested election that could affect Oahu's future for decades.

The problem of course is the newspaper was trying to pass the poll off as a public opinion poll. Every issue in this country is a political one. How would Neal Miner feel about a public opinion poll concerning equal rights if only likely voters were polled.

i am just now starting to look for information about rail. with what i have been reading, i may have missed on what the costs will be to ride it? also, will it be like the bus pass? for park and ride areas, will there be a charge for parking? will rail be self sustaining or will all tax payers be paying for a limited usage? if the 20% or more vehicles on the road from the west side will change to rail, will that number change as more homes are built or add even more to the traffic? i believe rail will help the construction industry over a long period of time. i believe there are pros and cons for both sides and which is the truth is sometimes hard to tell. if there is a website with easy to understand details, i would like to know it.

If Oahu in the end finally rejects rail, then I can confidently write off Hawaii as permanently backward, with an ostrich mentality. This technology called 'locomotion' really has been around for quite a while, and civilization has used it to great devices. I cannot understand why Hawaiians have made the conscious decision to sit in the worst traffic in the nation while at the same time rejecting a solution. Make the quantum leap into the 21st Century, Hawaii!!!

This Isn't Political

Yes2Rail is a blog about the Honolulu rail transit project, which has become the key issue in this year’s mayoral race. We comment on the candidates’ plans to address Oahu’s growing congestion problem and whether those plans could meet the need as well as elevated rail can and will. That’s not the same as criticizing the candidates, and we urge our readers to recognize the difference.

Another red-light runner meets Denver at-grade train, 6.13.12

Honolulu rail will be elevated, with zero possibility for accidents like those shown in this column in cities with at-grade systems. Visit our "aggregation site" for much more on why elevated rail is the only reasonable way to build Honolulu rail.

What riding the train will avoid

Bus Accident Aftermath on H-1

'Black Tuesday'--9/5/06 Crash Produced Nightmare Commute

Typical H-1 Traffic

About Me

After five years of active-duty service as an Army officer with duty stations in West Berlin and South Vietnam, reported and edited for newspapers and broadcast stations (including all-news radio) in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Honolulu. Covered Honolulu city government for the Honolulu Advertiser and KGMB-TV. Served on Congressman Cec Heftel's staff in Honolulu and Washington, then managed corporate communications and was Hawaiian Electric Company's spokesman for nearly a decade. A communications consultant for 19 years before moving to California in 2012. Launched, produced and hosted Hawaii Public Radio's "live" weekly "Energy Futures" public affairs program in 2009-10. Authored books on The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific ("Punchbowl" 1982) and on the decline of standard grammar in business and society ("Me and Him Are Killing English!" 2007). Now an information officer with the California Department of Water Resources.